Sold At Auction

The 96-suite Marriott Residence Inn in the Hunt Valley-Cockeysville area was sold at auction yesterday for $5 million to the Bank of New England, the lending institution that foreclosed earlier this year on the previous owners, a group called BA-Hunt Valley Associates.Robert J. Crawford Jr., a senior vice president, said the bank will continue to operate the hotel as part of its own portfolio for the foreseeable future and may eventually seek a buyer in a private sale. He said the property at 10710 Beaver Dam Road is the ninth inn or hotel that the bank has acquired in a recent foreclosure sale -- and the first in the Baltimore area.

Memorabilia Ruth bat, contract sold at auction, but ball withdrawn A nearly century-old Babe Ruth bat sold for $214,000 at a memorabilia auction Saturday night, but the first baseball whacked over the Yankee Stadium fence by the legendary slugger failed to land a new home. The auction, held at the Sports Legends Museum a day after the 100-year anniversary of Ruth's first major league game, featured 200 items related to the Baltimore-born home run king. Ruth's bat was discovered in a stash of pre-World War I Red Sox bats found in a 150-year-old home outside Boston, according to Goldin Auctions of New Jersey, which handled the sale.

The ghosts at Cockey's Tavern have no one to haunt except themselves until Jan. 27.At 10:30 that morning, the historic site, which has operated as an inn or tavern since the early 1800s, will be auctioned along with the restaurant equipment and some of the owners' personal property.Robert and Alida Lowry, who had owned it since 1985, closed the popular Westminster restaurant suddenly in September, saying the resignation of several longtime employees and the East Main Street reconstruction had hurt business.

What is just the second Nobel Peace Prize medal to be sold at auction will go under the gavel later this month at the Baltimore Convention Center. Lot #2029 at the Whitman Expo's spring auction of coins and collectibles will be the 1936 gold medal awarded to Argentina's former foreign minister, Carlos Saavedra Lamas. He received what arguably is the world's most prestigious prize for his role in negotiating the end of a war between Bolivia and Paraguay. The auction will be held March 27-30.

Some remnants of Baltimore Federal Financial FSA fetched $52,000 for the federal government as furniture, fixtures and equipment of the defunct thrift were sold at auction yesterday. The auction took place at the savings and loan's old administration building at 500 N. Calvert St.The auction was part of the effort by the Federal Resolution Trust Corp. to sell property and assets that the government acquired when it took over Baltimore Federal in February 1989. The federal agency is still attempting to sell $42 million worth of real estate owned by the thrift, including two branch operations, according to RTC spokeswoman Kate Spears.

The Cardinal Industries Building on Hammonds Ferry Road near Baltimore-Washington International Airport, a former center for modular home manufacturing that once had 300 employees, will be sold at an auction at noon Jan. 31 on the premises.Michael Fox Auctioneers is handling the sale of the vacant, 242,000-square-foot building and about 35 surrounding acres, which are zoned for industrial use.The auction comes more than a year after Ohio-based Cardinal Industries filed for protection from creditors under Chapter 11 of the U.S. Bankruptcy Code.

In a footnote to the saga of former Baltimore Comptroller Jacqueline F. McLean, the office building that led to the unraveling of her political career is being sold at auction.The two-story brick building in the heart of Federal Hill has been on the market for the past year since Mrs. McLean was convicted of theft and misconduct in a corruption scandal.NationsBank, which is foreclosing on the property, is forcing a sale at public auction Dec. 12. The bank is owed nearly $400,000 on the mortgage, according to court documents.

Symphony Woods Office Center, Rouse & Associates' landmark at the entrance to Columbia's Town Center, was sold at auction last week but will continue to operate under the developer's management.Balcor Pension Investors IV, the Chicago-based lender who financed the centerwith an $11.9 million loan and then foreclosed on it, bought the property for $9 million.It was the only bid at the auction, which took place Wednesday near the entrance to the county Circuit Courthouse in Ellicott City.Court documents indicate two Rouse & Associates partnerships owed a total of $15 million in principal and interest on the building's loanas of March 31.Linda G. Tresslar, the Balcor agent who made the bid, said she could not comment on the sale or foreclosure.

As many as 45 condominiums at Baltimore's posh Residences of the Colonnade will be among those available to prospective buyers at an auction this Saturday.One condominium, pardonez moi, will not be included in the auction. It is the Colonnade's two-story penthouse, "Loggia in the Sky," a 6,000-square-foot duplex that has its own, private elevator and comes with a 1991 Rolls Royce Corniche convertible as part of an asking price of $1.3 million.Selling for considerably less will be those units at the Colonnade that will go to auction.

It's just a tiny sliver of silver. Its face value wouldn't buy you a candy bar or a phone call. So what makes this one thin, tarnished Liberty Head dime, minted in San Francisco in 1894 and sold at auction in Baltimore on Monday, worth $1,322,500? Well, only 24 were minted, only nine are known to still exist - and collectors love it. "It's one of the most important coins in all of United States' numismatics," says John Feigenbaum, using the high-priced term for coin collecting. "The date itself is one of the three greatest dates of coins to buy, and this one is the finest of that date.

Former Ravens running back Damien Berry's Super Bowl XLVII ring has been sold for $43,008, according to Goldin Auctions. A former reserve player from the University of Miami who spent the 2012 season on injured reserve, Berry sold his ring and it was put up for consignment through a third party. Berry initially disputed that he had sold the ring before Goldin Auctions provided proof of a sales agreement and check made out to the former NFL player. Berry is no longer disputing the sale.

Eastpoint Mall, in southeast Baltimore County, was sold at auction Tuesday for $30.3 million, according to the auctioneer. A real estate investment firm based in southern Florida, LNR Property LLC, purchased the mall on the behalf of the lender who foreclosed on the property, said Alexander Forbes, of Tidewater Auctions LLC in Towson. One other bidder actively competed with LNR during the auction process, Forbes said. The auction stemmed from a lender's lawsuit against Thor Equities LLC, the New York-based investment firm that bought the mall in 2006.

The likely new owner reassured staffers of the Baltimore Jewish Times on Monday that nothing will change in the 93-year-old weekly's commitment to reporting on the local community. Louis Mayberg met with employees around lunchtime at the Park Avenue office of Alter Communications Inc., which publishes the Jewish Times and Style Magazine, answering questions about possible changes and explaining his business background. Mayberg's Rockville-based company, an affiliate of Washington Jewish Week, won the three-way bidding at a bankruptcy auction Monday morning with an offer of $1.26 million.

The shuttered Northwest Ice Rink in Baltimore's Mount Washington neighborhood was sold Wednesday at a foreclosure auction to a top bidder for $490,000, including a mortgage payoff amount. The buyer, who was not identified, plans to use the Cottonworth Avenue facility for something other than an ice rink, said Paul Cooper of Alex Cooper Auctioneers Inc., which handled the sale. The ice rink, formerly owned by Northwest Family Sports Center Inc., closed in August 2008 after 50 years in operation.

A hillside property with a view of Baltimore's harbor and skyline was sold at auction Tuesday for $715,000 to an unnamed buyer, whose representative said he expected the land would be developed for residential use. The auction of the 8.8-acre parcel on Waterview Avenue between Westport and Cherry Hill was a foreclosure sale on behalf of Columbia Bank. Tranzon Fox was the auctioneer. The city of Baltimore in 2004 approved plans for a project called Waterview Overlook, which was to contain condominiums and townhouses on the site, but construction never began.

A building and undeveloped land in the Hollander 95 Business Park sold in two separate foreclosure auctions Tuesday for a total $7.45 million, said Paul Cooper of Alex Cooper Auctioneers, which sold the property for lender M&T Bank. FRP Development Corp., a Sparks-based real estate development company, outbid several others to purchase the 82,000-square-foot warehouse, which is half-leased, for $4.35 million, Cooper said. The bank purchased eight undeveloped lots for $3.1 million, he said.

The Baltimore maker of Mary Sue Easter eggs and of gourmet chocolate, Chesapeake Candy Inc., will be sold at auction next month as a way to pay off debt and keep the struggling company going. The public auction of Chesapeake Candy, which runs Mary Sue Candies Inc. and Naron Candy Co., was approved Tuesday by Baltimore Circuit Court. The candy maker filed Aug. 31 for state court insolvency, which is similar to a Chapter 7 bankruptcy in federal court. The company has struggled since a 1996 merger between Mary Sue and Naron left it burdened with debt - now at $1.2 million - and unable to turn a profit, Mark Berman, president of the combined companies, said yesterday.

A Charles Village landmark, the "Copy Cat" building at 2443 N. Charles St., was sold at auction Tuesday to a father-and-son development team, Carl and Steven Verstandig. Their bid at the auction, handled by Alex Cooper Auctioneers, was $365,000 plus a 5 percent buyer's premium that brought the total price to $383,250. The Verstandigs, who have a company called CityWide Properties, said they plan to restore the exterior and renovate the interior. They said possible commercial tenants include a restaurant and a barber shop.